The Greeks in Bactria and India c11.5

c11.5

Demetrius took the ideas of Alexander and of his father to India, and the kingdom he established there was not Greek but Graeco-Indian, some sort of a partnership. He had several advantages; one was the political position so skilfully exploited by himself and his lieutenants, which threw a good deal of India on to his side from the start; another was the fact that the attitude of Greeks, or of some Greeks, towards Indians differed somewhat from their attitude towards other ‘barbarians’; they regarded them more as their equals. He was quite consciously copying Alexander: he meant to sit on the throne of the Mauryas as Alexander had sat on the throne of the Achaemenids. But there had been two Alexanders, the conqueror and the dreamer; and Demetrius’ idea of an empire which was to be a kind of partnership between Greek and Indian was inspired by the Alexander who had dreamt of a human brotherhood. How much with Alexander may have been sentiment we do not know; he was great enough to indulge in all the sentiment he pleased, did he desire to. But naturally one does not attribute sentiment to Euthydemus and his son; what *they* wanted was a great empire, but they thought that in the world of their day co-operation between Greek and Asiatic, such as Alexander had envisaged, offered the best chance of making one. Something of their strength is shown by the fact that Demetrius’ general Menander, who was not of his blood, carried on his policy wholeheartedly after his death; none of Alexander’s generals had done as much.